


Stone and Light

by lferion



Series: Iron and Light [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Thorin Lives, Alternate Universe of an Alternate Universe, Candles and Lamps, Gen, HobbitAdvent, Triple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 11:19:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bifur contemplates a certain stone chamber.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stone and Light

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hobbit Advent day 12, prompt: Candelight.
> 
> This is part of the AU of Zana's [ Lay of Dwalin the Dwarf](http://archiveofourown.org/series/37490) that [Light in Darkness](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1072288) is in. Series tentatively to be called Iron and Light.

* * *

Too warm, too bright, for this chamber to be a tomb. It had the accoutrements of one: the entrance pillars carved over with the outer name and public deeds of the one within. Inside were decorated walls, high-backed benches either side of the door, a lamp that was a masterpiece of the blacksmith's art. The plinth in the center supported a regal figure on a draped bier. 

But there was a cushion on one of the benches, a stray quill sticking out from under it like an extra tassel. The filigree lamp held a glowstone, still alight after a month, not the guttered remains of a seven-day mourning-candle. Orcrist and the Arkenstone both seeming to give off more radiance than they gathered - not the baleful sheen of warning, nor the glitter of dragon-malice, but a softer, warmer light, doubling and trebling the lamp. And the recumbent form was not an effigy, a cold stone portrait of Bifur's King, but Thorin himself, as still as a carving, pale as alabaster, cool as wax. 

Not a tomb, though it might yet become one, as so many other places this deep in the Mountain were. Not a bier, but a bed, not death but sleep, the Sleep of Durin-under-Stone, from which Mahal might wake him, healed of hurts, of wounds of body and of mind, though not of grief. For when Thorin woke (and Bifur was certain to the roots of his soul that Thorin would wake) there would be no laughing nephews to draw him forth back into the day, no sister-sons to greet him. (They were laid together nearby, in a vault as richly carved, as beautiful and lovingly made, but dark now, and cold, for that their candles had burned out.)

Bifur would wait. His King would not wake alone.


End file.
